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Planetary News: Kaguya (SELENE) (2007)Kaguya Approaches LaunchBy Yasunori MatogawaJune 18, 2007 Japan is advancing toward the moon at long last. The lunar explorer Kaguya (formerly known as SELENE) loaded onboard the thirteenth H-IIA rocket will leave Earth from Tanegashima Space Center in August. The Moon, a long time friend of mankind, has been a precious heavenly body from ancient time, particularly for us Japanese. The explorer, nicknamed "Kaguya" (the name of the heroine princess in "The Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter," believed to be the oldest science fiction in the world) will go on a lonely space journey, separating from the launch vehicle 45 minutes and 32 seconds after the blast-off. In the past, H-IIA launches were under the sole responsibility of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), but from now on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. takes the responsibility for the whole launch operation and JAXA is responsible for security management.
Kaguya consists of a main orbiting satellite and two sub-satellites. Its exploration objectives are largely divided into two; "elucidation of the origin and evolution of the Moon" and "development of technology for future exploration of the lunar surface and natural resources utilization." A high-resolution camera provided NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) is also installed on the satellite. About an hour after lift-off, solar panels will be deployed. Twenty days later, the satellite will be placed into a long elliptical orbit; after another 40 days, the spacecraft will achieve its 100-kilometer circular orbit. After each shift in orbit, small satellites will be separated. Three months later, the data transmission bus and mission instruments will undergo thorough checkup. Once this is complete, observations will start. However, before everything is completely ready, camera tests will be carried out, so some of the images so obtained may be released to public depending upon the situation. As for the high-resolution images to be taken by the NHK camera on the way to the Moon, we are now in the process of coordination with NHK how to deal with them. Scientific objectives of the mission are:
The one-year mission of Kaguya is to obtain scientific data to verify the current theories that the Moon formed at the same time as Earth, 4.5 billion years ago, and that the moon is now solid but was molten at one time. It is commonly believed that the Apollo program answered all questions about the Moon during a series of its missions conducted from the 1960's to early 1970's. The truth is, however, that Apollo's accomplishments did not cover a very broad range of scientific study. After Apollo, there were only four lunar exploration missions: Hiten of Japan, Clementine and Lunar Prospector of USA, and SMART-1 of Europe. None of them, however, implemented scientific observation of the Moon as thoroughly as will be done by Kaguya. After Kaguya will follow more lunar explorations such as Chang'E-1 of China, Chandrayaan-1 of India, and American and Russian missions. In this respect, expected accomplishments by Kaguya, the largest mission since Apollo, will be an extremely important task for the whole world, to lay the foundation for human challenge to the Moon in the future. I welcome your opinions on this column to the following E-mail
address. (Translated by The
Planetary Society of Japan)
Dr. Yasunori Matogawa is Associate Executive Director of JAXA in charge of the Office of Public Outreach and Space Education, ISAS/JAXA, and also professor of ISAS, the space department of JAXA, in charge of robotic space missions of Japan. Dr. Matogawa has been devoting himself to Japanese space exploration for over 30 years. Copyright (c) 2007 The Planetary Society of Japan. All rights reserved. |
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